Stars: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Mary Beth Hurt, Nestor Serrano, Cliff Curtis, Marc Anthony, Aida Turturro, Larry Fessenden, Afemo Omilami, Cynthia Roman

Director: Martin Scorsese

Summary: Frank Pierce, a paramedic, is haunted by visions of people he was unable to save. Over three nights with different working partners we witness Frank's search for redemption which only pushes him further towards madness...

Martin Scorsese exhilaratingly adapts Joe Connelly's novel about Frank (Nicolas Cage), a paramedic working among the filth and mental desolation of New York City's Hell's Kitchen in the early 1990s. Lately he has been haunted by the visions of a beautiful 18-year-old girl whom he was unable to resuscitate. Soon after, another image begins to torment him, that of Mary (Patricia Arquette), a recovering drug addict who enters Frank's life when he attempts to save her father. His spiral into even further confusion is paralleled with his three driving partners: Larry (a boisterous John Goodman), whose advice to Frank is not to think about all the death and violence; Marcus (a scene-stealing Ving Rhames), a religious fanatic who uses his medical skills as propaganda for the Lord; and Walls (a maniacal Tom Sizemore), a loose cannon who has no sensible grounding whatsoever. In order to escape the madness that is consuming him, Frank asks, unsuccessfully, to be fired. He must ride out the nightmare, trying to redeem the lives of Rose, Mary, and himself in the process. Scorsese uses his camera to capture Frank's wavering mental state with tilted angles and fast-speed photography. In portraying the tormented Frank, Cage dives wholeheartedly into character, delivering another fiery performance.

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Reuniting the "dream team" of director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter (and esteemed director in his own right) Paul Schrader--the men who brought you Taxi Driverand Raging Bull--Bringing Out the Deadprovoked outrageously high expectations on its theatrical release. But when this brown-paper parcel of a film was unwrapped by critics and film-goers, the collective Christmas-morning sigh of disappointment was all but audible. Sure, there is a lot of blood but where are all the guns, the wise guys cracking wise, the filmic fireworks most people expect from a Scorsese movie? But shake the wrapping a bit and out rolls a tiny, perfect parable about New York City ambulance driver Frank (Nicolas Cage) who finds grace just when he seems to have hit rock bottom.

Deprived of sleep, wired on speed of kinds, haunted by visions of a homeless girl he couldn't save, like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, Frank roams the neon-spackled streets despairing at the decay around him. He's as war-torn by the ravages of the 1980s (the film is set in the early 1990s, before Mayor Giuliani got tough on crime) as Travis was by Vietnam's after effects. But Frank's problem is too much empathy, not alienation, and at least he is not as crazy as his co-drivers--one addicted to food (John Goodman), one to religion (Ving Rhames) and one to drugs and violence (Tom Sizemore)--each colleague more hilarious and frightening than the last. This is a story of a man who thought he could not take it anymore, one wracked by guilt and regret, who ends up being redeemed by--it's a movie cliché, and yet it just about works here--the love of a good woman (Patricia Arquette).

Bringing Out the Deadmay lack the glamorous, adolescent angst of Taxi Driverand eschew the rigorous dissection of masculinity that distinguished Raging Bullbut it has its own quieter virtues and just as much visual bravura. Watching it on the small screen gives you more time to absorb its moral subtleties, its spectacular time-lapse photography and, like all great Scorsese movies, its hysterical stretches of black humour (Rhames' character's attempt to raise a seemingly dead clubber is a particular highlight). It may not be one of the director's, or even the screenwriter's, best films, but it still towers above most of the dross churned out by Hollywood every year and remains indispensable viewing for anyone serious about cinema. --Leslie Felperin

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Scene Access, Location Featurette
Subtitles:	Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish
Year:	1999
Release Date:	June 15, 2006
Runtime:	116 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B E D 888175
Keywords:	Out, Comedy, Dead, Bringing, General, Thriller
Genre:	Thriller